tzmon

- ACPI Thermal Zone Monitor

Description

The tzmon is a pseudo driver that serves as an ACPI thermal
zone monitor. Thermal zones are logical regions within a computer system
for which ACPI performs temperature monitoring and control functions. The number of
thermal zones on a system with ACPI support varies. For example, some systems
may have one or more thermal zones, while others may have none.
See the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification, (ACPI) Version 3.0A. for more details.

The tzmon handles thermal Zone events from ACPI and polls the temperature
for each zone exposed by the ACPI implementation. If threshold temperatures
are reached, tzmon takes appropriate action. For example, if the temperature
is sufficiently high and the ACPI implementation supports it, tzmon initiates system shutdown.

Note that by default, system temperature control functions are usually performed
by the BIOS and may supersede tzmon functions, depending on the BIOS
implementation. Also, many ACPI implementations expose no thermal zones and in these
cases, tzmon performs no functions.